The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish

“The lake is beautiful. It's something from a fairytale nightmare. It's the embodiment of everything mean and awful and wrong, contained and glittering.”

when men break girls and women for the purpose of art, they're mysterious and misunderstood creatives. when women create art, they have to break themselves.

This was pretty enthralling. I put it down at one point and said to myself, there is not one likeable character in this story. And that's okay. I don't need characters to be likeable. Edie's a little rough with her violent outbursts and Mae, Mae is just something else. They could be a product of their environment, or it could be genetic. I think it ran deeper than just being raised by worst mom of the century. I'm knocking off a star because I found the most interesting part of the entire novel to be the end chapters and they just cut off. Damn.
And this is neither here nor there, but the book is set in the late 90's (with some flash forwards and some letters that reveal the past) so I guess I thought that would be significant and it's really not. There are no current events or pop culture mentioned. I guess the timing just landed there because Dennis was a Freedom Rider.

How do you grow up normal if your mother has bipolar disease and your father is a womanizing artist who drains his muses. Sisters Edie and Mae basically only have each other, one blond and scraggly, the other raven-haired and doe-eyed. Edie gets fits, and Mae sinks into trances. When their mother attempts to commit suicide, they have to move in with their estranged dad in NYC. And when the sisters drift apart, each leaning towards the one parent, things get darker.

While I enjoyed the gloomy dynamics of this twisted family, I wanted to like it even more, but never reached those heights.